Today in Iraq

"There are some who, uh, feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is: Bring 'em on. We got the force necessary to deal with the security situation. “ - George W. Bush, July 2, 2003.

Monday, May 31, 2004

War News for May 31, 2004
Bring ‘em on: Two US soldiers, 20 Iraqi militiamen killed in fighting near Kufa.
Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed, two wounded by roadside bomb “south of Baghdad.”
Bring ‘em on: IGC member assassinated near Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: One Iraqi security guard killed in ambush near Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Two Westerners killed, three kidnapped in ambush near Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Two US soldiers wounded in fighting near Najaf.
Bring ‘em on: Car bomb kills two Iraqis near Green Zone in Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Japanese military convoy ambushed near Samawah; casualties are reported.
Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqis killed, four wounded in mortar attack in Samarra.
Bring ‘em on: Two Iraqis killed in mortar attack on US positions near Mosul.
Bring ‘em on: Two insurgents killed while planting roadside bomb near Beiji.
Bring ‘em on: Five Iraqi policemen wounded by roadside bomb near Basra.
Lieutenant AWOL’s war trophy. “Ousted Iraq president Saddam Hussein's pistol has made its way to the White House with United States President George W Bush proudly showing it to select visitors, Time magazine said in a report…’ He really liked showing it off,’ the report quoted an unnamed visitor to the White House as saying. ‘He was really proud of it.’” salvage has the best commentary on this item.Redeployment. “At Fort Riley, this is the last stop before home for soldiers returning from Iraq. Mandatory "debriefs" like this one, to be conducted for thousands of soldiers in training rooms and auditoriums at bases across the country, are a novelty for the United States military. The sessions were begun in response to a spate of deaths at Fort Bragg, N.C., in 2002, when four soldiers were charged with killing their wives in unrelated cases. The sessions reflect the realization that for soldiers and their families, the burdens and sacrifices of deployment go far beyond fighting overseas and waiting at home. As these re-entry sessions show, coping with war is a long-term struggle, a way of life, falling hardest on a sliver of American society: the men, women and children of the military class, hundreds of thousands of them, many clustered in and around bases like Fort Riley.”
More on detainee deaths. “In the aftermath of the international outcry over the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, the Pentagon has repeatedly said it thoroughly investigates all accusations of mistreatment and misconduct. But as the handling of the death certificates suggests, many of the known investigations into abuses against Afghan and Iraqi detainees moved glacially, at least until the photographs of hooded, shackled and naked Iraqi prisoners appeared late last month.”
CommentaryAnalysis: Meanwhile, America's reputation has plummeted, not only in the Middle East but in European and other countries considered long-time allies. Among Arabs, the prevailing view hasn't improved since the war was launched, Mr. Telhami said. "They believe the war was for oil and for Israel, but not for democracy, not for weapons of mass destruction, not for any of these things that were stated by the U.S."
Analysis: “Now, as Mr. Brahimi nears the end of his work, Iraqis are discovering that his task was not so simple. With his slate of appointees expected to be announced in the next day or two, the appointments leaked so far suggest that what Mr. Brahimi ultimately accomplishes may turn out to be less a revolution than a rearrangement, less a new cast of characters than a reworked version of the same old faces. The reason, Iraqis are beginning to say, has been the unexpected assertiveness of American officials and their allies on the Iraqi Governing Council, coupled with Mr. Brahimi's surprising passivity, after he was expected to have a free hand. The danger, some of these Iraqis say, is that the new government could end up looking too much like the old one, an American-appointed council that never gained the acceptance of the people. If that proves true once the appointees are officially announced, they said, the new government could lack the credibility it needs to carry the country through the turbulent period leading to nationwide elections next year. Already, a three-day cease-fire appeared to be unraveling in the south.”
86-43-04. Pass it on.

Sunday, May 30, 2004

War News for May 30, 2004
Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed, nine wounded in mortar attack “south of Baghdad.”
Bring ‘em on: Driver and bodyguard of Iraqi newspaper editor killed in Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Three US Marines killed in action in al-Anbar province.
Bring ‘em on: Four Iraqis wounded in continued fighting in Najaf.
Bring ‘em on: Six US soldiers wounded by car bomb near Mosul.
One US soldier dies in “non-hostile incident” near Mosul.
Chalabi staffers evicted from offices in Ramadi.
Coalition of the not-so-willing. “South Korean medics and engineers have been rotating in and out of Iraq for nearly a year, but the main dispatch of 3,000 troops is months behind schedule. Originally, the South Koreans were to go to the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. But the South Korean government changed its mind in March because of rising violence. Since then, the search for a new location has proceeded at such a slow pace that critics have accused the Koreans of foot-dragging. It now seems unlikely that the troops will be deployed before August.”
Disillusioned. “Jabir Algarawi has returned from Iraq dejected and disillusioned. In December, the north Phoenix resident traveled to his former homeland for the first time in 11 years, eager not only to visit his family in post-Saddam Iraq but excited to play a role in the country's transition from a dictatorship to a democracy.”
General Zinni lists Lieutenant AWOL’s Top Ten Blunders in Iraq.
Arab press reaction to Iraq’s interim prime minister.
Idaho National Guard mobilized for duty in Iraq. “More than 40 percent of Idaho's National Guard members will be headed to Iraq with Saturday's announcement of a full mobilization of the Guard's 116th Cavalry Brigade. It's the most extensive call-up of Idaho's National Guard for overseas military deployment in the state's history.”
Massive looting continues in Iraq. “In the past several months, the International Atomic Energy Agency, based in Vienna, Austria, has been closely monitoring satellite photographs of hundreds of military-industrial sites in Iraq. Initial results from that analysis are jarring, said Jacques Baute, director of the agency’s Iraq nuclear verification office: Entire buildings and complexes of as many as a dozen buildings have been vanishing from the photographs.”
OPTEMPO. “American soldiers are firing so much ammunition that the military's largest supplier of bullets can't keep up. Tanks that log 800 miles a year in peacetime are grinding through that many miles in a month, wearing out their treads. Fighting in Iraq and increased training back home are straining the military's supplies and giving manufacturers in the United States a surge in business.” It's interesting to note that the Army has "given contracts for 70 million rounds each to Israel Military Industries Ltd." Arabs shot by Israeli bullets fired from American rifles? Who the hell let this contract and why? Military necessity, incompetence or another Perle/Feith-based crony contract? An inquiring journalist might find an answer.
Lieutenant AWOL’s health care plan for Iraq. “Iraq's top surgeons, neurologists and other doctors are fleeing Baghdad, bullied into exile by a growing gang of kidnappers seeking hefty ransoms from the country's affluent elite. ‘The kidnapping of doctors has risen over the past few months, forcing the best practitioners to leave Iraq and settle in neighbouring countries to protect themselves,’ said health ministry public affairs officer May Yassin.”
More of Lieutenant AWOL’s “Support the Troops” tax policy. “The Bush administration opposes a House-passed plan to phase out the Social Security offset, also called the “widow’s tax” feature, of the military Survivor Benefit Plan. But White House budget officials aren’t recommending a presidential veto if the plan appears in the final 2005 defense authorization bill.”
CommentaryOpinion: "It is our patriotic duty to speak out when egregiously flawed policies and strategies needlessly cost American lives. It is time for the president to ask those responsible for the flawed Iraqi policy -- civilian and military -- to resign from public service. Absent such a change in the current administration, many of us will be forced to choose a presidential candidate whose domestic policies we may not like but who understands firsthand the effects of flawed policies and incompetent military strategies and who fully comprehends the price." The writer is a retired major general in the Marine Corps. He served as director of the expeditionary warfare division in the office of the deputy chief of naval operations.Analysis: “This time the point of these scolds' political strategy — and it is a political strategy, despite some of its adherents' quasireligiosity — is clear enough. It is not merely to demonize gays and the usual rogue's gallery of secularist bogeymen for any American ill but to clear the Bush administration of any culpability for Abu Ghraib, the disaster that may have destroyed its mission in Iraq. If porn or MTV or Howard Stern can be said to have induced a ‘few bad apples’ in one prison to misbehave, then everyone else in the chain of command, from the commander-in-chief down, is off the hook. If the culture war can be cross-wired with the actual war, then the buck will stop not at the Pentagon or the White House but at the Paris Hilton video, or ‘Mean Girls,’ or maybe ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.’”
Casualty Reports
Local story: Missouri soldier wounded in Iraq.
86-43-04. Pass it on.

Saturday, May 29, 2004

War News for May 28 and 29, 2004
Bring ‘em on: Four Iraqis wounded in mortar attack near Green Zone in Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Two Japanese journalists, Iraqi interpreter killed in ambush near Mahmoudiyah.
Bring ‘em on: Five Iraqis killed in fighting near Najaf.
Bring ‘em on: One Iraqi killed, four wounded in fighting near Baquba.
Bring ‘em on: Two US soldiers wounded in ambush near Kufa.
Bring ‘em on: US troops attacked with small arms near Abu Ghraib.
Bring ‘em on: Two explosions reported in central Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: US troops mortared near Najaf.
Bring ‘em on: ICDC general and family assassinated near Kirkuk.
Bring ‘em on: CJTF-7 reports three US Marines killed in al-Anbar province.
Bring ‘em on: Two Dutch soldiers wounded in ambush near Samawah.
Bring ‘em on: Iraqi police station attacked near Basra.
Six Australian soldiers injured in vehicle accident near Baghdad.
IGC selects interim Iraqi prime minister. “The role of the UN in selecting the interim government remained unclear. A spokesman for Brahimi referred to Allawi as "prime minister-designate" and said Brahimi looked forward to working with him in selecting the members of the interim government. A UN spokesman in New York later told reporters the world body ‘respected’ the selection of Allawi but declined to endorse the nomination despite several invitations by reporters to do so. Chief UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said at the UN later in the day that the announcement was ‘not how we expected it to happen,’ according to Reuters.”
Demographics of US KIAs in Iraq. “Nonetheless, some conclusions can be teased out of the available data. A study done for the Austin American-Statesman by Bill Bishop and Robert Cushing revealed that, although the majority of the war dead come from what the Census Bureau calls "metropolitan" areas, which usually include close-in suburban counties, a disproportionately large share came from "nonmetro" counties. According to Bishop and Cushing, nearly a third (29 percent) of dead troops came from rural areas and small towns, compared with only a fifth (19 percent) of the general population. Given the concentration of political, economic, and cultural power in America's cities and near suburbs, and the slow dwindling of opportunity in many small towns, this analysis does suggest that the lower middle class is unduly bearing the burden. But the information is hardly conclusive. The definitive answers will take years to disinter. And in the end, the truth, like the dead, may be lost in the fog of war and time.”
General Zinni uncorks on Lieutenant AWOL and his neo-con bunglers. “He says the U.S. military was provided with unrealistic objectives in Iraq. ‘We were in there talking about Jeffersonian democracy, free market economies, changing the face of the Middle East with this one blow. That was ridiculous, and I think now what we have is young kids paying the price...’”
Profiles of IGC members.
Chickenhawks defend Chalabi. “’There is a smear campaign under way, and it is being perpetrated by the C.I.A. and the D.I.A. and a gaggle of former intelligence officers who have succeeded in planting these stories, which are accepted with hardly any scrutiny,’ Mr. Perle, a leading conservative, said in an interview. Mr. Perle, referring to both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, said the campaign against Mr. Chalabi was ‘an outrageous abuse of power’ by United States government officials in Washington and Baghdad.” Sounds like an effort to impede a national security investigation to me.
Bible-thumping foreign policy. “Organized, motivated and self-confident, evangelicals are girding for two more foreign-policy battles. They seek freedom to proselytize in the Muslim lands of Iraq and Afghanistan. And they want to link any future U.S. aid for North Korea, in case of a nuclear accord, to progress there on human rights.” Just what our foreign policy needs: Elmer Gantry as Secretary of State.
Sergeant loses security clearance for talking to the press. “Sgt. Samuel Provance said he wasn’t surprised when Lt. Col. James Norwood summoned him to Wiesbaden on Friday, less than a week after the sergeant spoke to ABC News about his experiences at the Abu Ghraib. Provance is the only military intelligence soldier who served at the prison to publicly speak about prisoner abuses there, despite orders from his command to keep quiet. Now, Norwood, his battalion commander, has flagged Provance from favorable actions and pulled his top-secret clearance.”
CommentaryEditorial: “President Bush said yesterday that he would transfer ‘complete and full sovereignty’ to an interim Iraqi government in barely a month. But nothing even close to that is likely to happen. Recent developments suggest that this ‘sovereignty’ will have little substance and that the president still has no coherent plan to create the security and political trust required to negotiate a constitution and hold fair elections. The sovereignty timetable remains driven by the American electoral calendar and growing Iraqi impatience with an incompetent and deeply unpopular occupation. That unpopularity also taints the American-appointed Governing Council, which makes the council's announcement yesterday of the selection of Iyad Alawi, one of its most prominent members, as interim prime minister disheartening. The choice of Mr. Alawi, a Shiite exile with close ties to former Baathist generals and to the Central Intelligence Agency, hardly signals a fresh start. The manner of his designation raises questions about the authority of the United Nations' special representative, Lakhdar Brahimi. Paul Bremer III, Washington's proconsul, didn't even give Mr. Brahimi time to announce his support for Mr. Alawi before striding into the council's meeting to offer congratulations.”
Opinion: “There is a difference between the administration decision to go to war and the decision of men and women who are called to follow their leader. This leader - the president - has made poor decisions, in my view, and jumped to conclusions before the facts. As a result, we are in a war that may be more unforgettable than any other war in our history. So, on this Memorial Day, I will remember my father, brothers, uncles, friends and relatives who have died or spent time fighting in a war. I will say a prayer of thanks for their brave deeds and place a flower on their final resting place. I also will ask them to pray for us. We may have let loose dogs of war that can't be tamed until a terrible price is paid.”
Casualty Reports
Local story: Two Nebraska Marines killed in Iraq.
Local story: Maine soldier killed in Iraq.
Local story: California soldier killed in Iraq.
Local story: Maine soldier wounded in Iraq.
Local story: Six Vermont Guardsmen wounded in Iraq.
Local story: California soldier wounded in Iraq.
Local story. Florida Guardsman found dead after returning from Iraq.
Off TopicSuperb rant. “When a new history of the United States of America comes to be written, the narrative will show that the biggest disaster that ever happened to that country was President George W. Bush Jnr., and not the calamity of September 11, 2001. And if George Bush should write his memoirs after being voted out of the White House, he should title the work, ‘Failure’ with the sub-title, ‘How the Son Never Rose.’ George Bush is the clearest example of how, in spite of all the privileges and advantages at one's disposal, one can easily fail to succeed in life.”
86-43-04. Pass it on.

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

War News for May 26, 2004
Bring ‘em on: Two Russian contractors, two Iraqis killed in ambush near Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Two US soldiers killed, six wounded in mortar attack near Iskandariyah.
Bring ‘em on: Six insurgents killed, one US soldier wounded in firefight near Tikrit.
Bring ‘em on: Five Iraqis wounded by IED near Balad Ruz.
Bring ‘em on: Iraqi police chief wounded in assassination attempt near Baquba.
Bring ‘em on: One US soldier wounded in RPG attack on Baghdad police station.
Bring ‘em on: Bulgarian troops under mortar fire near Karbala.
Bring ‘em on: Nine Iraqis killed in Najaf fighting.
One US soldier killed, two injured in vehicle accident near ad-Dwar.
Report from Sadr City. “In the past month, seven Iraqis, including the chairman of Sadr City's version of a city council, were killed in separate incidents, an Iraqi police official said. In every case, their bodies were hung in public with attached signs accusing them of being American spies.”
More desperate measures. “’The thought that OPFOR is now being thrown into the mix in Iraq is deeply shocking because it absolutely shows where we are now,’ said retired Army colonel Kenneth Allard, an author and lecturer on military history and strategy. ‘We've always managed to maintain the basic integrity of the training base. That is the seed corn of the Army.’… Until now, OPFOR has been considered off limits for deployment to foreign wars. The Army's philosophy was, ‘the more you train in peace, the less you bleed in war,’ Allard said. The increase in violence in Iraq has forced the Pentagon to sustain a larger land force in Iraq than planned and for a longer - at this point, indefinite - period.”
Something done right. “The senior Muslim religious leader in the Iraqi city of Samarra inspected the jail at Forward Operating Base Brassfield-Mora earlier this month to check on the condition of Iraqi prisoners being held there by the 1st Infantry Division, a 1st ID spokesman said.”
Anatomy of an ambush. “The unidentified American soldier, a young military police officer, was carried from the gate by her four comrades, nervous, jittery men whose fear seemed to throb in their eyes. The wounded soldier writhed in her own blood and shrieked, her voice climbing and ebbing suddenly as if she had run out of breath. ‘Hold on, we'll be there in 10 minutes,’ one soldier said, lifting her onto the hood of their Humvee as a crowd of Iraqis gathered and the police waved their guns.”
CommentaryOpinion: “This is called staying the course. The only course an immoral war can follow is one of unrelenting tragedy and permanent mistrust. It cannot be a surprise that a certain number of soldiers did not care about Iraqi prisoners when the commander in chief has yet to seriously acknowledge, let alone apologize for the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians. It cannot be a surprise that the military continues to make mistakes and then blithely tells the press the victims had evil intentions when the commander in chief has yet to apologize for a single mistake outside of the prison abuse scandal. On Monday Bush issued a five-point plan to stabilize Iraq. No five-point plan can come from a president whose war had no point. Under him, staying the course will continue to mean the blowing to bits of brides, grooms, mothers, and children. The only credible plan is one where Bush announces that he has changed course -- right out of Iraq.”
Analysis: “It has become an article of faith among neo-conservatives that, as one of their number - syndicated columnist Mona Charen - recently put it, ‘the question of the moment is not whether we've done enough good, but whether we've been tough enough’….Commanders on the ground knew it was a disaster and, with White House backing, eventually agreed to lift the siege and permit a former Revolutionary Guard general, who had been cashiered under Chalabi's ‘de-Ba'athization’ program, to organize a local security force that includes other ex-Ba'athists, and which so far has also kept the peace. Denounced as ‘appeasement’ by the neo-cons, that agreement is now seen by the uniformed military, as well as the realists in the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the British Foreign Office - who have always considered the neo-cons' dreams of ‘transforming’ Iraq into a democratic, pro-Western, pro-Israel state fanciful - as the model for dealing with other restive parts of the country, including the Shi'ite south.
Casualty Reports
Local story: Two Vermont Guardsmen killed in Iraq.
Local story: California Marine killed in Iraq.
Local story: Ohio soldier wounded in Iraq.
Local story: Ohio Guardsman wounded in Iraq.
86-43-04. Pass it on.

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

War News for May 25, 2004
Bring ‘em on: Turkmen politician assassinated in Kirkuk.
Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed, four wounded in rocket attack near Balad.
Bring ‘em on: Eighteen Iraqis killed in fighting in Sadr City.
Bring ‘em on: US convoy attacked near Fallujah.
Bring ‘em on: Oil pipeline ablaze near Kirkuk.
Bring ‘em on: Five Iraqis wounded in car bombing at Baghdad hotel.
Bring ‘em on: Continued fighting in Najaf, Imam Ali mosque damaged by mortar fire.
Bring ‘em on: Two Iraqis killed, 14 wounded in fighting near Kufa.
Bring ‘em on: Mortar attacks reported in Mosul.
Bring ‘em on: Another hotel in Baghdad bombed; casualties are reported.
Iraqi judge gets death threats. “As he nervously ran his fingers over a strand of green prayer beads, Maliky — the chief investigative judge of Iraq's Central Criminal Court and the man who had issued the search warrant — said he had received more than a dozen death threats.”
Another blunder. “Security sources said there was no information about the extent of damage to the mausoleum of Imam Ali in Najaf. It was hit by six rockets apparently fired by U.S. forces fighting against Shiite gunmen holed up in the holy city.” Here comes another shitstorm.
US moves to recognize private militias. “A senior allied official said Monday that the Americans were engaged in delicate negotiations with several of the country's main militias to disband and integrate them into the security forces. The official said the Americans hoped to announce an agreement with the militias as early as this week. But it is not clear, with so few weeks left before the transfer of sovereignty, whether the Americans will have the leverage to disarm the militias. The danger is that on June 30 the Americans will hand over power to an Iraqi administration that will not have a monopoly on the use of armed force, in an environment that many fear could set the stage for sectarian and ethnic warfare as the country moves toward what are intended to be democratic elections. As that date approaches, the Americans are quietly allowing some of these armed groups to flourish and, in some cases, have even helped recreate them.”
Wartime president, my ass. “The US-led war in Iraq, far from countering terrorism, has instead helped revitalise al-Qaeda, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think-tank warned today. The London-based body argued in its annual Strategic Survey 2003/2004 that the deadly train bombings in Madrid in March showed that Osama Bin Laden's terror network ‘had fully reconstituted’. It also predicted the Islamic group would step up its anti-Western attacks, possibly even resorting to weapons of mass destruction and targeting Americans, Europeans and Israelis while continuing to support insurgents opposing the US-led occupation of Iraq.”
Coalition of the disillusioned. “Poland wants to "significantly reduce" its military presence in Iraq after next January, its defence minister said today. ‘After January 30, after the parliamentary elections, we want to significantly reduce our presence,’ Jerzy Szmajdzinski told the private radio station Zet.”
Iraqi reaction to Lieutenant AWOL’s speech. “Iraqis expressed little faith in American promises after months of occupation which many said had delivered only violence, a lack of basic services and a scandal over the inhumane treatment of prisoners by the U.S. military. ‘He lies. We don't believe anything Bush says. The Americans have not done a thing for Iraqis. And now he promises to hand over power to Iraqis in a democracy after handpicking the people in the Governing Council,’ Haidar Majeed, a trader, said on Tuesday.” I can't wait to read what River has to say.
A few days ago Eschaton posted a story about 2,000 missing pages from the copy of MG Taguba’s report that was provided to congressional investigators. Atrios wondered if the media would pick up on this story. Well, we may not hear much about this in the United States, but the Borneo Bulletin is all over the story!
Informed Comment has a guest editorial posted today entitled "America's Incompetent Colonialism" by Keith Wapentaugh. It's well worth reading.
CommentaryEditorial: “It's regrettable that this president is never going to admit any shortcomings, much less failure. That's an aspect of Mr. Bush's character that we have to live with. But we cannot live without a serious plan for doing more than just getting through the June 30 transition and then muddling along until the November elections in the United States. Mr. Bush has yet to come up with a realistic way to internationalize the military operation and to get Iraq's political groups beyond their current game of jockeying for power and into a real process of drafting a workable constitution.”
Analysis: “In order to truly persuade critical swing voters, Mr. Bush requires a very different message than he does when trying to persuade the rest of the world to help create a stable Iraq. So when he recast his objectives for Iraq in last night's televised speech, it was supposed to satisfy two audiences.”
Analysis: “To understand how bad our reporting on Iraq has been, all one has to do is read Seymour Hersh's spectacular uncovering of the Abu Ghraib humiliation. Where were the so-called ‘embedded’ journalists in Iraq? (As Studs Terkel suggested, the United States was ‘in bed with journalists.’) Were they simply writing down what our generals announced while riding Humvees through Baghdad? Looks that way. “
Casualty Reports
Local story: Pennsylvania soldier killed in Iraq.
Local story: Illinois Guardsman killed in Iraq.
Local story: Idaho soldier wounded in Iraq.
Local story: US soldier wounded in Iraq.
Local story: Florida soldier wounded in Iraq.
86-43-04. Pass it on.

Monday, May 24, 2004

War News for May 24, 2004
Bring ‘em on: Car bomb kills four outside Green Zone in Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Fighting continues in Najaf.
Bring ‘em on: One US soldier and one US Marine killed by roadside bomb ambush near Fallujah.
Bring ‘em on: Four US soldiers wounded in mortar attack near Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqi civilians killed by roadside bomb ambush near Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Withdrawing Spanish troops attacked, one soldier wounded.
Bring ‘em on: Five US soldiers wounded by explosive devices and small arms fire near Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Two British security contractors killed in Baghdad RPG attack.
Civilian deaths in Iraq. “An Associated Press survey of the deaths in the first 12 months of the occupation found that more than 5,000 Iraqis died violently in Baghdad and in three provinces. The toll from both criminal and political violence ran dramatically higher than the number of violent deaths before the war, according to the statistics from morgues.”
Guardsmen protecting contractors. “Members of a National Guard unit assigned to protect civilian contractors in Iraq says the task puts them at greater risk than when they were hauling military supplies for the Army. Sgt. Donald Curttright of the 1221st Transportation Company said the 150-member unit doesn't have enough manpower to provide security for defense contractor KBR, formerly known as Kellogg, Brown & Root. ‘There might be 30 trucks, and we'll have six or seven of us riding shotgun armed with M-16 (rifles),’ he said during a trip home to Excelsior Springs. ‘If we're attacked, we're expected to protect the whole thing. I don't know how we're supposed to do it.’” Would Rummy please explain again why outsourcing logistics functions in a combat zone is such a great idea?
Unhappy chickenhawks. “Influential conservatives in Washington - who saw ‘liberation’ of Iraq as a bridgehead for spreading democracy through the Middle East - meanwhile believe reluctance to take on Sunni insurgents and deal with Iraq's many militia armies is a betrayal of that mission, and will only store up trouble for the future.”
Iraqi security forces still untrained, unequipped, and unready. “On Capitol Hill last week, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that despite an intense Pentagon effort to cut through contracting snarls, most Iraqi police officers would not be fully equipped with radios, weapons and vehicles until December. He said the equipping problems had been solved. But in a veiled criticism, he suggested that responsibility for the delays lay with L. Paul Bremer III, the chief American administrator in Iraq, and Mr. Bremer's top aides, who until recently were in charge of equipping the police. ‘We should have done this earlier,’ General Myers told the House Armed Services Committee on Friday, ‘but it was somebody else's responsibility for a while, and now that'll come under General Petraeus.’” Myers is finally starting to notice that Baghdad fashion maven L. Paul Bremer is incompetent? What took so long?
Oregon’s governor. “A former Marine corporal, the Democrat tries to find time to attend the funeral of every Oregon soldier who dies in the war in Iraq, and says it ‘probably means more to me than anything I have done.’ Kulongoski has attended funerals or memorial services for 10 out of the 18 soldiers with strong Oregon ties, at times taking the podium. It's the grieving parents that affect him the most, said the governor, a father of three.”
Wedding video. “The videotape obtained Sunday by Associated Press Television News captures a wedding party that survivors say was later attacked by U.S. planes early Wednesday, killing up to 45 people. The dead included the cameraman, Yasser Shawkat Abdullah, hired to record the festivities, which ended Tuesday night before the planes struck. The U.S. military says it is investigating the attack, which took place in the village of Mogr el-Deeb about five miles from the Syrian border, but that all evidence so far indicates the target was a safehouse for foreign fighters.”
CommentaryOpinion: “In the history of the world, several great civilizations that seemed immortal have deteriorated and died. I don't want to seem dramatic tonight, but I've lived a long while, and for the first time in my life, I have this faint, faraway fear that it could happen to us here in America as it happened to the Greek and Roman civilizations. Too many Americans don't understand what we have here, or how to keep it. I worry for my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren. I want them to have what I've had, and I sense it slipping away.”
Analysis: “Today, the United States is confronted by another ill-considered war, conceived in ideological zeal and pursued with contempt for truth, disregard of history and an arrogant assertion of American power that has stunned and alienated much of the world, including traditional allies. At a juncture in history when the United States needed a president to intelligently and forcefully lead a real international campaign against terrorism and its causes, Bush decided instead to unilaterally declare war on a totalitarian state that never represented a terrorist threat; to claim exemption from international law regarding the treatment of prisoners; to suspend constitutional guarantees even to non-combatants at home and abroad; and to ignore sound military advice from the only member of his Cabinet - Powell - with the most requisite experience. Instead of using America's moral authority to lead a great global cause, Bush squandered it. In Republican cloakrooms, as in the Oval Office, response to catastrophe these days is more concerned with politics and PR than principle. Said Tom DeLay, House majority leader: ‘A full-fledged congressional investigation - that's like saying we need an investigation every time there's police brutality on the street.’”
Analysis: “However, the White House spins such a withdrawal, Gray writes, ‘the rest of the world will recognise it as a humiliating defeat - and it is here that the analogy of Vietnam is inadequate. The Iraq war has been lost far more quickly than that in South-east Asia, and the impact on the world is potentially much greater. Whereas Vietnam had little economic significance, Iraq is pivotal in the world economy. No dominoes fell with the fall of Saigon, but some pretty weighty ones could be shaken as the American tanks rumble out of Baghdad.’ In fact, they're already shaking; and not just in the Middle East.”
Opinion: “The president's reservoir of credibility on Iraq is bone dry. His approval ratings are going down. Conservative voices in opposition to his policies are growing louder. And the troops themselves are becoming increasingly disenchanted with their mission. Yet no one knows quite what to do. Americans are torn between a desire to stop the madness by pulling the plug on this tragic and hopeless adventure and the realization that the U.S., for the time being, may be the only safeguard against a catastrophic civil war. The president is scheduled to give a speech tonight to lay out his ‘clear strategy’ for the future of Iraq. Don't hold your breath. This is the same president who deliberately exploited his nation's fear of terrorism in the aftermath of Sept. 11 to lead it into the long dark starless night of Iraq.”
Casualty Reports
Local story: Montana soldier wounded in Iraq.
86-43-04. Pass it on.

Sunday, May 23, 2004

War News for May 23, 2004
Bring ‘em on: Iraqi police captain killed in ambush near Baquba.
Bring ‘em on: Five Iraqis killed by mortar fire near Basra.
Bring ‘em on: Dean of Diyala University escapes assassination attempt near Baquba.
Bring ‘em on: Fourteen Iraqis killed in continued fighting near Najaf.
Bring ‘em on: Sixteen Iraqis killed in heavy fighting near Kufa.
Bring ‘em on: One Iraqi policeman killed, two wounded by bomb ambush near Basra.
US Army MPs raid Iraqi police station near Fallujah.
Iran sends formal warning to US over actions in Iraq.
Rummy bans camera phones from US Army installations in Iraq. “Quoting a Pentagon source, the paper said the US Defence Department believes that some of the damning photos of US soldiers abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad were taken with camera phones.”
Spin control. “President Bush will launch an ambitious campaign Monday night to shift attention from recent setbacks that have eroded domestic and international support for U.S. policy in Iraq, particularly the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the escalating violence, and focus instead on the future of post-occupation Iraq. The president will open a tightly orchestrated public relations effort in a speech at the Army War College outlining U.S. plans for the next critical five weeks before the June 30 transfer of political power. The White House then intends this week to circulate a draft United Nations resolution on post-occupation Iraq, wrap up negotiations with Iraqis on an interim government and begin shoring up the coalition to ensure that other foreign forces also stay after June 30, U.S. officials said.”
Sen. Hagel sounds off. “Hagel, who also sits on the Intelligence Committee, says that Bush ‘may be more isolated than any president in recent memory’ and therefore susceptible to faulty advice. Much of that advice, Hagel says, has come from Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and former Pentagon official Richard Perle. But the problem, in Hagel's view, was compounded by the president's lack of foreign-policy experience. ‘I think you've got a president who is not schooled, educated, experienced in foreign policy in any way, versus his father,’ Hagel says. ‘I think he was philosophically, intellectually more in tune with the neoconservatives'approach to 'let's go get them, and we'll worry about it later.’”
Sen. Lugar sounds off. “’Unless the United States commits itself to a sustained program of repairing and building alliances, expanding trade, pursuing resolutions to regional conflicts, supporting democracy and development worldwide, and controlling weapons of mass destruction, we are likely to experience acts of catastrophic terrorism that would undermine our economy, damage our society, and kill hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people,’ Lugar will say in the commencement speech. Lugar, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Commission, has critiqued the Bush administration for lack of planning for the Iraq war and aftermath. But the commencement speech is his sharpest criticism to date. ‘It's a powerful indictment of the approach the United States has taken in the last 3 1/2 years,’ said Jay Farrar, vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. ‘It shows the administration has fumbled the ball.’ Farrar said Lugar's speech ‘says what a lot of people have been thinking over the last couple of years: The approach we've taken is not only the wrong approach, it's morally bankrupt and has set the United States back so much further than we were at the beginning of this administration.’”
General Zinni sounds off. Long but very insightful transcript of a presentation given to the Center for Defense Information by General Zinni.
Lieutenant AWOL’s “tax relief” for troops. “An estimated 5,000 to 10,000 military members fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan last year received combat-zone tax exclusions that had a surprising effect: lowered family incomes. Some families saw a net loss in tax benefits of more than $4,000 because wartime tax exclusions disqualified them for more valuable tax breaks, including the Earned Income Tax Credit...A Defense Department proposal to address the problem this spring failed to clear the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. Treasury officials said it would lower tax revenues and therefore opposed it.”
The Brat Pack. “When Ledeen's group showed up at the palace -- with their North Face camping gear, Abercrombie & Fitch camouflage and digital cameras -- they were quite the spectacle. For some, they represented everything that was right with the CPA: They were young, energetic and idealistic. For others, they represented everything that was wrong with the CPA: They were young, inexperienced, and regarded as ideologues. Several had impressive paper credentials, but in the wrong fields. Greco was fluent in English, Italian and Spanish; Burns had been a policy analyst focused on family and health care; and Ledeen had co-founded a cooking school. But none had ever worked in the Middle East, none spoke Arabic, and few could tell a balance sheet from an accounts receivable statement. Other staffers quickly nicknamed the newcomers ‘The Brat Pack.’ ‘They had come over because of one reason or another, and they were put in positions of authority that they had no clue about,’ remembered Army Reserve Sgt. Thomas D. Wirges, 38, who had been working on rehabilitating the Baghdad Stock Exchange.
Some also grumbled about the new staffers' political ties. Retired U.S. Army Col. Charles Krohn said many in the CPA regard the occupation ‘as a political event,’ always looking for a way to make the president look good.” It’s interesting to note that these young ideologues were all recruited from the Heritage Foundation. No wonder the CPA has made such a mess out of reconstruction in Iraq.CommentaryAnalysis: “We have not made a ‘a crucial advance in the campaign against terror,’ the words President Bush used when he declared victory in "Operation Iraqi Freedom" on May 1, 2003. Instead we have stimulated new hatred of the United States in precisely the regions from which future terrorist threats are most likely to arise, while alienating our traditional allies. By embracing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza, we abandoned the "honest broker" role that U.S. governments tried to play for four decades in the Middle East, and we confirmed the conspiratorial suspicions of every anti-American Arab. Our credibility has been battered.”
Analysis: “The occupation of Iraq has affirmed the worst fears of the Islamic world, reinforcing distaste for America and what it represents, and spawning wild conspiracy theories about the motives of the West. Many Muslims now see the American intervention as a devastating betrayal, starkly reflected by the Red Cross's recent conclusion that 70 to 90 percent of all Iraqis who were ‘deprived of their liberty’ -- by the world champion of democracy – ‘were arrested by mistake.’ Others in the region react with fury to the symbolism of a naked Arab male on a concrete floor tethered to a female American soldier looking down with disinterested arrogance on her prisoner at Abu Ghraib.”
Analysis: “We are not yet at a point where we might have to withdraw the Army from Iraq in order to save it, but we are getting close. Just as Vietnam destroyed the draftee Army, Iraq could undermine the all-volunteer Army. No wonder the Army War College says the Army is near its breaking point and retired Army Lt. Gen. William E. Odom argues that, for the sake of our security, we should remove our forces from Iraq as quickly as possible. To remedy the situation, the administration needs to add two active-duty divisions as soon as possible. Delay will place the Army and the country in danger.”
Casualty Reports
Local story: Massachusetts Marine killed in Iraq.
Local story: Florida soldier wounded in Iraq.
86-43-04. Pass it on.

Saturday, May 22, 2004

War News for May 21 and 22, 2004 draft
Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed, three wounded by car bomb near Mahmudiyah.
Bring ‘em on: Four Iraqi policemen, one Iraqi civilian killed in attempted assassination in Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Eighteen Iraqi militiamen killed in heavy fighting in Karbala.
Bring ‘em on: Four ICDC members killed in ambush near Baquba.
Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed, two wounded in ambush near Samarra.
Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed, three wounded in Baghdad RPG ambush.
Bring ‘em on: Green Zone mortared in Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Heavy fighting continues in Najaf.
Bring ‘em on: Three US soldiers wounded in attack on Najaf police station.
CJTF-7 reports one US Marine died in a vehicle accident in al-Anbar province.
US troops arrest al-Sadr supporters in Kirkuk.
Sailboat fuel. A Halliburton Inc. subsidiary sent empty flatbed trucks crisscrossing Iraq more than 100 times this year, putting their drivers and military escorts at risk and handing taxpayers the bill with a little added profit. The drivers were in peril of insurgent attack while taking empty rigs on the 300-mile resupply run from Camp Cedar in southern Iraq to Camp Anaconda near Baghdad, said 12 current and former drivers for the company. The subsidiary, Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), billed the government for hauling what the drivers derisively called ‘sailboat fuel.’”
More Halliburton corruption. “But the insider who spoke to the Herald claimed that demands for kickbacks made to caterers seeking Halliburton contracts were well known in the industry. ‘It was too blatant, the corruption that was going on, not to be caught,’ he said. He claimed a Halliburton employee involved in contracting used a go-between to solicit the kickbacks. The go-between was a European consultant.” Why isn’t this story reported in the US media?Rule of law, my ass. “The confidential memorandums, several of which were written or co-written by John C. Yoo, a University of California law professor who was serving in the department, provided arguments to keep United States officials from being charged with war crimes for the way prisoners were detained and interrogated. They were endorsed by top lawyers in the White House, the Pentagon and the vice president's office but drew dissents from the State Department. The memorandums provide legal arguments to support administration officials' assertions that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to detainees from the Afghanistan war. They also suggested how officials could inoculate themselves from liability by claiming that abused prisoners were in some other nation's custody.”
CommentaryAnalysis: “Since the defining moment of the Bush presidency, the preposterous flight-suit, Fox News-produced photo-op on the Abraham Lincoln in front of the banner that read ‘Mission Accomplished,’ the shaming truth is that everything has gone wrong. Just as it was bound to go wrong, as many of us predicted it would go wrong--if anything more hopelessly wrong than any of us would have dared to prophesy. Iraq is an epic train wreck, and there's not a single American citizen who's going to walk away unscathed.”
Analysis: “This bureaucratic feud was so entrenched that when I visited Baghdad in the early months after the collapse of the regime, I was horrified to see how much time and energy went into interagency fighting. Despite the news media's portrayal of Mr. Chalabi as "Washington's favorite Iraqi," it was obvious that L. Paul Bremer, the American proconsul in Baghdad, was doing his utmost to limit his influence. Within the governing council, Mr. Chalabi was highly effective, the go-to guy for the occupation forces whenever there was a problem. But at the same time, Mr. Bremer's staff worked hard to undermine Mr. Chalabi — haggling with him over government jobs; cutting off his communications with Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of Defense; and eventually eliminating direct aid to the Iraqi National Congress. Vacillating between liberation and occupation, American rule in Iraq has created a power vacuum. You feel this in Baghdad. The Americans micromanage the governing council, deny Iraqis a voice, live in secluded compounds, make exclusive decisions on contracts, and push away secular liberals like Mr. Chalabi in favor of Shiite clergy and former Baathists.”
Casualty Reports
Local story: Virginia soldier killed in Iraq.
Local story: Arkansas Guardsman killed in Iraq.
Local story: Virginia Marine dies in Iraq.
Local story: Illinois Marine wounded in Iraq.
Local story: Oklahoma soldier wounded in Iraq.
Local story: North Carolina Guardsman wounded in Iraq.
Awards and Decorations
Local story: Texas Marine decorated for valor.
86-43-04. Pass it on.

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

War News for May 19, 2004
Bring ‘em on: One US Marine killed in action in al-Anbar province.
Bring ‘em on: Four Iraqis killed in fighting in central Karbala.
What you don’t read in the US media. “Since late April, the Iraqi press has reported at least a dozen attempts to kill Iraqis working -- or suspected of working -- with the Americans. On April 28 in Baghdad, a mob hanged three men, each accused of working "as a spy for the enemies of Islam," according to a message left at their feet. The next day, gunmen shot an employee of Baghdad's Sadr City district town hall at his home. The assailants left a letter in his pocket warning against holding a funeral. On May 8, gunmen in Yusufiya, south of Baghdad, killed the head of the town council as he drove on a main street. Farther south in Samawah the next day, gunmen ran the car of the deputy mayor off the road and shot him and three passengers.”
Trained, highly skilled contractors. “He had no military experience in interrogation. As a junior Navy intelligence specialist, a petty officer third class, he did all of his work in an office, reading and analyzing intelligence reports, the Navy said. But just three months later, Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba began his investigation of prisoner abuses and found that Mr. Stefanowicz was directing some of the military police officers linked to abuses. He was, therefore, "directly or indirectly responsible" for the abuses, the general wrote.”
More desperate measures. “Iraq's government is scrambling to find members for an elite security team to protect top officials, but time is so short and quality candidates so scarce that former Baathist bodyguards and special forces are being recruited.”
Another soldier reports detainee abuse. “Sgt Provance claimed that dozens of soldiers were involved in mistreating Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib, despite claims by top Bush administration officials that it was perpetrated by a group of rogue soldiers.”
Iranian Shi’ites protest US battles near Najaf. “Tens of thousands of Iranians took part in a state-sponsored rally on Wednesday to demand U.S.-led forces leave Iraq. Shi'ite Muslim Iran has voiced growing opposition to the occupation of its western neighbour in recent days with senior government and religious figures incensed by the presence of U.S. military forces in the holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala.”
US soldier pleads guilty to abuse charges in Baghdad.
Wolfowitz of Arabia. Clueless, as usual. “In Washington, deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz was unable to say how long the United States will keep a large military force in Iraq. ‘We don't know what it will be,’ he told the Senate foreign relations committee yesterday. ‘We've had changes, as you know, month by month. We've had several different plans.’”
Chalabi loses US taxpayer subsidies. “The Iraqi National Congress was informed last Friday that the $335,000 monthly payment it's received from the Defense Intelligence Agency would stop in June, they said. The payments were first reported by Knight Ridder on Feb. 21. The funding cutoff represents a major setback to administration hard-liners, who had hoped to position INC leader Ahmad Chalabi to head a democratic Iraqi government that would sign a peace treaty with Israel, allow the United States to build permanent military bases in Iraq, and serve as a model for the rest of the Middle East.”
CommentaryOpinion: A few weeks ago, Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, said, ‘I think no one can properly assert that the failure to find Iraqi WMD stockpiles undermines the reasons for the war.’ Really? Well then let me assert it improperly. You told us that it was why we had to go to war, and you can't just stand there and lie about it now. This is like trying to debate the Red Queen. Sometimes it's more a matter of the neocons not being able to get their act together. Paul Wolfowitz, my fave, said the other day, ‘No one ever expected this would be a cakewalk.’ Actually, those were the very words rather famously used by his neocon buddy Ken Adelman, who predicted the war would be a cakewalk. But nothing tops Wolfowitz's classic declaration, ‘There is no history of ethnic strife in Iraq.’”
Casualty Reports
Local story: Oregon Marine killed in Iraq.
Local story: Kentucky soldier killed in Iraq.
Local story: Two Pennsylvania Guardsmen killed in Iraq.
Local story: North Carolina soldier killed in Iraq.
Monkey Mail!
To yankeedoodle@gmail.com
From xxxxxx@hotmail.com
Subject: Wow! Your blog.
Any respect I could have had for you is washed away by your "Stink Tanks" and "Fruit Baskets" link sections.
Obviously someone can't see that organizations like the Heritage Foundation promote free markets and limited governments. This you call a "Stink Tank". Some "intellect" you've got there.
86-43-04. Pass it on.

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

War News for May 18, 2004
Bring ‘em on: British contractor assassinated in Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Two US soldiers killed in fighting in al-Anbar province.
Bring ‘em on: Nine Iraqi militiamen killed in continued fighting in Karbala.
Bring ‘em on: Two foreign civilians killed, one wounded in Mosul shooting.
Bring ‘em on: Heavy fighting continues in Najaf.
Italian troops re-occupy their base near Nasiriyah.
Sistani urges US and Mahdi forces to withdraw from Karbala and Najaf.
UK sends 3,000 more troops to Iraq. “And the British military is said to be increasingly upset at the willingness of US troops to ‘kill, kill and kill again’, according to a former British officer. The British chief of the General Staff, Sir Michael Jackson, said there was "military friction" last month when he gave evidence to a parliamentary committee. As a result of the growing rift, British commanders are becoming increasingly reluctant to commit troops to zones not under British control, according to Newsweek magazine.”
Rummy’s happy-spin of the day. “Yesterday, in a speech to a warmly receptive audience at Washington's conservative Heritage Foundation, Mr. Rumsfeld lashed out at supporters of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and at those battling the U.S. occupation. ‘There's a lot of intimidation going on,’ Mr. Rumsfeld said. ‘The former regime elements, the Baathists and the terrorists are trying to intimidate the Iraqi people.’"
Desperate measures. “The Defense Department, strapped for troops for missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, has proposed to Congress that it tap the Internal Revenue Service to locate out-of-touch reservists. The unusual measure, which the Pentagon said has been examined by lawyers, would allow the IRS to pass on addresses for tens of thousands of former military members who still face recall into the active duty. The proposal has largely escaped attention amid all the other crises of government, and it is likely to face opposition from privacy rights activists who see information held by the IRS as inviolate.” Would these be the same lawyers who examined Rummy's interrogation policies?CommentaryAnalysis: “Indeed, intelligence and regular Army sources have told UPI that senior officers and officials in both communities are sickened and outraged by the revelations of mass torture and abuse, and also by the incompetence involved, in the Abu Ghraib prison revelations. These sources also said that officials all the way up to the highest level in both the Army and the Agency are determined not to be scapegoated, or allow very junior soldiers or officials to take the full blame for the excesses…. But what enrages many serving senior Army generals and U.S. top-level intelligence community professionals is that the "few" in this case were not primarily the serving soldiers who were actually encouraged to carry out the abuses and even then take photos of the victims, but that they were encouraged to do so, with the Army's well-established safeguards against such abuses deliberately removed by high-level Pentagon civilian officials”
Analysis: “Acting out of weakness and haste, the CPA is simply folding these militias into the new Iraqi Army and police. Such militias owe their primary loyalty to religious groups like the Dawa and the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which have strong fundamentalist leanings. Others have ties to smaller, less well-known groups. But the general phenomenon of armed groups is on the rise—easy in a country in which virtually every male over 14 owns a Kalashnikov. Over time, these political groups will struggle for power—and their militias will help them do battle. When elections are held, they will use force and money to ensure that the results come out their way.”
Opinion: “Before the war, officials refused to discuss costs, except to insist that they would be minimal. It was only after the shooting started, and Congress was in no position to balk, that the administration demanded $75 billion for the Iraq Freedom Fund. Then, after declaring ‘mission accomplished’ and pushing through a big tax cut — and after several months when administration officials played down the need for more funds — Mr. Bush told Congress that he needed an additional $87 billion. Assured that the situation in Iraq was steadily improving, and warned that American soldiers would suffer if the money wasn't forthcoming, Congress gave Mr. Bush another blank check.
Now Mr. Bush is back for more. Given this history, one might have expected him to show some contrition — to promise to change his ways and to offer at least a pretense that Congress would henceforth have some say in how money was spent.”
Casualty Reports
Local story: New Jersey soldier killed in Iraq.
Local story: Pennsylvania Guardsman killed in Iraq.
Local story: Virginia soldier killed in Iraq.
Local story: California soldier dies in Iraq.
Local story: Texas soldier killed in Iraq.
Local story: Tennessee airman dies in Iraq.
Local story: Louisiana soldier dies in Iraq.
Local story: Utah Marine wounded in Iraq.
Local story: Michigan soldier wounded in Iraq.
Local story: Arkansas soldier wounded in Iraq.
Local story: New York soldier wounded in Iraq.
Rant of the Day
The Bushies claim that releasing more pictures of Iraqi prisoner abuse would violate the Geneva Convention. Here’s a little blast from the past, when broadcasting humiliating pictures of an Iraqi prisoner was policy and the Bushies didn’t need no stinking Geneva Conventions. “Dec. 22 Issue - In a part of the world where pride and dignity mean everything, the images were clearly intended to shame. A nameless doctor or medical technician, wearing rubber gloves, was seen closely examining the man's hair, perhaps looking for vermin. Prodded with a tongue depressor, the man opened his mouth; the doctor peered at the pink flesh of his throat and scraped off a few cells for DNA identification. Then the world saw the man's face. Haggard, defeated, slightly disgusted and unquestionably Saddam Hussein, tyrant and terrorist, sadist and murderer, object of one of the greatest manhunts in history.”
In the Army, this is called leading by example. Piss-poor leadership, to be sure, but leadership none the less.
86-43-04. Pass it on.

Monday, May 17, 2004

War News for May 17, 2004Note to Readers
"Today in Iraq" is receiving an unusually large volume of traffic today. If the page doesn't fully load, you can either hit the "refresh" button or re-size your screen. Either action causes the page to load completely. Don't ask me why. It's magic.
Bring ‘em on: IGC President assassinated by car bomb in Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Ten Italian soldiers wounded as Mahdi Army seizes Nasiriyah.
Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed, two wounded in fighting south of Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Five Shi’ite militiamen killed in fighting near Karbala.
Bring ‘em on: CPA offices in Nasiriyah evacuated.
Bring ‘em on: Relative of Najaf’s new governor assassinated near Kufa.
Italy asks US to curtail offensive operations around Karbala, Kufa, and Najaf.
“Large-scale” anti-US protests reported in Karbala.
Italian soldier dies of wounds received in fighting near Nasiriyah.
Philippines forbids citizens from working in Iraq due to poor security.
Soldier son killed in Iraq, mom faces deportation for drug offense. “In many cases, including Cabral's, immigration judges are barred from showing mercy. The law requires deportation for most drug possession charges, even for the mother of a dead hero. ‘My son gave his life for his country,’ Cabral said of Juan, 25, an Army mechanic who died in January near Kirkuk. ‘To me, he is still alive.’” I wonder if Lieutenant AWOL hugged this mom.
Bremer’s soup sandwich. “For weeks, the American occupation authority in Iraq has been updating the timetable leading to the day it is supposed to go out of business, on June 30, declaring on its Web site on Sunday that there were ‘46 days until Iraqi sovereignty.’ Yet nowhere on the Web site, or anyplace else in official American statements, can be found the identity of the new Iraqi leadership or the precise powers of the new Iraqi government over many important matters, including the full authority over Iraqi armed forces.”
Camp Cropper. “About 100 high-ranking Iraqi prisoners held for months at a time in spartan conditions on the outskirts of Baghdad International Airport are being detained under a special chain of command, under conditions not subject to approval by the top American commander in Iraq, according to military officials. The unusual lines of authority in the detainees' handling are part of a tangled network of authority over prisoners in Iraq, in which the military police, military intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, various military commanders and the Pentagon itself have all played a role. Congressional investigators who are looking into the scandal over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners say those arrangements have made it difficult to determine where the final authority lies.”
Second thoughts. “After the setbacks in Falluja and Najaf, followed by the prisoner abuse scandal, hawks are glumly trying to reconcile the reality in Iraq with the predictions they made before the war. A few have already given up on the idea of a stable democracy in Iraq, and many are predicting failure unless there's a dramatic change in policy - a new date for elections, a new secretary of defense, a new exit strategy.”
US plans to redeploy one combat brigade from Korea to Iraq.
CommentaryOpinion: “This wrong was not committed by accident but by design. In the revelatory new documentary about Al Jazeera, ‘Control Room,’ opening in New York this Friday before fanning out nationally, we are taken into our own Central Command's media center in Doha, Qatar, in early April 2003 to see American mythmaking in action. The Lynch episode came at a troubling moment in the war; our troops were being stretched thin, the coalition had mistakenly shot up a van full of Iraqi women and children, and three Marines had just been killed in the latest helicopter crash. But as we see in ‘Control Room,’ the CentCom press operation was determined to drown out such bad news by disseminating the triumphant prepackaged saga of its manufactured heroine no matter what.”
Casualty Reports
Local story: California soldier dies in Iraq.
Local story: Florida sailor wounded in Iraq.
86-43-04. Pass it on.

Sunday, May 16, 2004

War News for May 16, 2004.
Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqi civilians killed in rocket attack on British camp near Basra.
Bring ‘em on: Explosions reported in central Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed, one wounded in roadside bombing in Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Eighteen insurgents killed in fighting in Sadr City.
Bring ‘em on: Fighting reported in Karbala.
Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqi women working for US coalition assassinated in Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Home of Iraqi translator bombed in Kut.
Bring ‘em on: Iraqi translator assassinated near Mahmoudiyah.
Note to Readers
After reading Sy Hersch’s latest article in the New Yorker, I re-read MG Taguba’s report looking for his findings that either support or disprove Hersch’s allegations that prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib resulted from DoD policy on the coercive interrogation of detainees.
I thought it might be helpful to explain an AR 15-6 report so readers unfamiliar with Army correspondence can digest the findings and recommendations. The mission of an AR 15-6 investigating officer is to establish facts and report them to the commander who appointed him. The appointing commander sets the scope of the investigation and can also direct the investigating officer to make recommendations for corrective action.
The purpose of this analysis is to examine the issue of whether Military Intelligence personnel influenced MP guards to abuse prisoners in pursuit of interrogation operations and whether there are indicators that this policy originated at the DoD level. I’m going to leave out parts of the report that are not germane to these issues.
One of the things that the American media fails to understand is that the scope of MG Taguba’s investigation was limited to the 800th Military Police Brigade and detention operations at Abu Ghraib. He did not investigate Military Intelligence interrogation policies and procedures, but he recommends such an investigation and points an accusing finger directly at specific officers and civilian contractors from the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade and the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center.
In the Background portion of the report, MG Taguba explains the circumstances surrounding his appointment as investigating officer (IO) and the scope of his investigation. In a nutshell, on January 19, 2004 the commander of US forces in Iraq, LTG Sanchez, requested that his immediate superior officer, CENTCOM commander GEN Abazaid, appoint a General Officer to investigate alleged prisoner abuse and other issues in the 800th MP Brigade. On January 24, the CENTCOM Chief of Staff directed the commander of Coalition Land Forces Component (CFLCC) to conduct the investigation LTG Sanchez had requested. In turn, the CLFCC commander, LTG McKiernan appointed MG Taguba as AR 15-6 investigating officer.
There are four significant pieces of information contained in this portion of the report.
1. The investigation was ordered by GEN Abazaid, not LTG Sanchez, as has been reported in the press. As commander of CENTCOM, GEN Abazaid reported directly to GEN Myers at JCS and Secretary Rumsfeld at DoD.
2. LTG Sanchez specifically requested an investigating officer in the rank of Major General, indicating that the focus of the investigation would be an officer in the rank of Brigadier General.
3. The scope of the investigation is limited to the 800th MP Brigade.
4. A criminal investigation of prisoner abuse by US Army Criminal Investigation Command was already underway.
Next, MG Taguba reviewed a survey of detention and interrogation operations conducted by MG Geoffrey Miller, entitled “Assessment of DoD Counter-Terrorism, Interrogation and Detention Operations in Iraq. In his report, MG Taguba summarizes MG Miller’s assessment and comments that the detainees at Abu Ghraib are significantly different in their potential intelligence value, and that using the facility guard force to facilitate interrogation operations is both doctrinally unsound and damaging to the smooth operation of the detention facility.
I would like to know more about MG Miller’s report, such as who directed that he conduct the survey and whether his specific recommendation “that CJTF-7 dedicate and train a detention guard force subordinate to the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center (JDIC) that ‘sets the conditions for the successful interrogation and exploitation of internees/detainees’” was implemented. The answers to both of those questions would indicate whether or not the policy of coercive interrogation was directed from the DoD level.
MG Taguba also reviewed and commented on a comprehensive review of detainee operations throughout the Iraq theater of operations conducted by MG Ryder. While noting that commanders in the 800th MP Brigade were not formally tasked to “set conditions” for interrogation operations, “it is obvious from a review of comprehensive CID interviews of suspects and witnesses this was done at lower levels.”
In the portion of MG Taguba’s report entitled “Preliminary Investigative Actions,” MG Taguba describes his team composition, training, methodology and provides a timeline of investigatory actions.
The “Findings and Recommendations” portion of the report are divided into four parts corresponding to the four specific lines of inquiry MG Taguba was directed to undertake by his appointment orders. Part One addresses prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib; Part Two addresses detainee escapes, riots and accountability; Part Three addresses training, procedures, and command climate within the 800th MP Brigade; and Part Four includes specific findings of fact and recommendations for corrective action.
In his Part One findings, MG Taguba makes clear that COL Pappas, Commander, 205th MI Brigade was the commander of Abu Ghraib from November 19, 2003 to February 6, 2004. In addition to the abuses committed by members of the 800th MP Brigade, MG Taguba found abuses committed by members of the 325th MI Battalion, 205th MI Brigade and the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center. He also found that Military Police guards acted at the request of Military Intelligence officers to “set physical and mental conditions for the favorable interrogation of witnesses.” In paragraph 11 of the Part One findings, Taguba lists five witness statements that directly say the MPs were acting under the direction of Military Intelligence personnel.
In Paragraph 8 of the Part One Recommendations, MG Taguba recommends an inquiry under the provisions of AR 381-10, Procedure 15, to determine the culpability of Military Intelligence personnel.
In Paragraph 9 of the Part Three findings, MG Taguba found that an “ambiguous” command relationship between the 800th MP Brigade and the 205th MI Brigade was “exacerbated” by a Fragmentary Order issued by CJTF-7 on November 19th, 2003. The FRAGO made COL Pappas responsible the operation of Abu Ghraib and placed the MP guards under his command. The FRAGO was rescinded on February 6, 2004.
In Paragraph 18 of the Part Three findings, MG Taguba documents disciplinary actions taken against officers and senior NCOs of the 800th MP Brigade for misconduct. GOMOR is an acronym for General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand. This was really one fucked up unit.
In Paragraph 2 of the Recommendations portion of Part Three, MG Taguba recommends the commander of the 205th MI for a GOMOR for failing to properly supervise his soldiers, failing to ensure those soldiers were trained in Internee Rules of Engagement and failing to ensure they treated internees in accordance with Geneva Convention protections.
In Paragraph 4 of the Recommendations portion of Part Three, MG Taguba recommends relief-for-cause and a GOMOR for the commander of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center for lying to investigators, and for the same command failures as the commander of the 205th MI Brigade.
In Paragraph 11 of the Recommendations portion of Part Three, MG Taguba recommends termination of employment and security clearance for a civilian contract interrogator for lying to investigators about his conduct of interrogations and knowledge of abuses, and encouraging MP guards to abuse prisoners in pursuit of interrogation operations.
In Paragraph 12 of the Recommendations portion of Part Three, MG Taguba recommends termination of employment for a civilian contract interrogator for lying to investigators and not possessing a security clearance.
In Paragraph 13, MG Taguba recommends a Procedure 15 inquiry to determine the extent of Military Intelligence personnel culpability in the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. “I suspect that COL Thomas M. Pappas, LTC Steve L. Jordan, Mr. Steven Stephanowitz, and Mr. John Israel were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib (BCCF) and strongly recommend immediate disciplinary action as described in the preceding paragraphs as well as the initiation of a Procedure 15 Inquiry to determine the full extent of their culpability.” Emphasis in the original.
AR 381-10 is the basic regulation governing US Army intelligence activities. It contains procedures that intelligence personnel must follow to obtain and maintain legal authority to conduct intelligence collection activities, as well as prohibited activities. AR 381-10 implements Federal law regarding intelligence collection as it applies to the US Army. Procedure 15 is an AR 381-10 inquiry, punitive in nature, to determine if any persons assigned to US Army Intelligence violated Federal law in the course of their duties.
Coupled with the Hersch piece, MG Taguba’s AR 15-6 report and a few other news items I’ve posted recently, it seems to me that there was indeed a blanket policy of coercive interrogation applied to the Iraqi detainees in US custody at Abu Ghraib. The media is missing the story here. The scandal isn’t the lower-ranking MP soldiers we’ve seen in the infamous pictures or their piss-poor leadership – and I’m not defending either of them.
The issue is a blanket policy of coercive interrogation. Somebody made the decision to apply that policy through Military Intelligence channels. Presumably, the decision-maker made a conscious cost-benefit analysis, weighing the potential intelligence value of detainees against the damage that would result if word of the abuse that results from such a policy were made public, especially in light of the administration’s War on Terror.
It also appears that the administration, as well as the media, is going to try to pin the blame for this shameful decision on a few low-ranking soldiers and ignore the larger issues of incompetence – not to mention illegality – of policies originating at the highest level in the Defense Department.
The media and Congress should pursue the recommendations MG Taguba made in his report, specifically the Procedure 15 against members of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, and see where those policies originated in the chain of command.
There is also a report in the Army Times that MG Taguba has been unexpectedly reassigned from his duties at CFLCC to the Pentagon. Big surprise.
AddedAR 381-10
This Army Regulation implements Federal law concerning intelligence collection activities. It applies only to Army personnel engaged in intelligence collection activities. The procedures contained in this regulation provide guidelines for legal intelligence collection during peacetime. Requests for exceptions to these procedures must be approved by the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense (Policy) on a case-by-case basis.
Procedure 15.
This is a procedure to report an investigate intelligence personnel who engage in “questionable activities.” Intelligence personnel who are aware of questionable activities are required to submit reports within five days through command channels to the office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, or through Inspector General channels. Reporting is mandatory.
An initial investigation is required to be completed by the reporting command within 30 days, and a report must be forwarded to the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence. The report is then passed to both the Department of the Army Inspector General and the Army General Counsel for review.
In this case, a Procedure 15 inquiry would most likely be initiated by the G2 at CENTCOM, who would conduct the initial investigation and then forward the report as described above. Since MG Taguba made his AR 15-6 recommendations in January, the process – and Procedure 15 investigation – should be well underway by now. An enterprising journalist might want to ask about its status.
86-43-04. Pass it on.

Saturday, May 15, 2004

War News for May 14 - 15, 2004
Bring ‘em on: Heavy fighting reported in Najaf. Sh'ite shrine, cemetary damaged.
Bring ‘em on: Sixteen insurgents killed, two British soldiers wounded in three coordinated ambushes near Amarah.
Bring ‘em on: Insurgents control bridges, besiege CPA offices in central Nasiriyah.
Bring ‘em on: Fighting reported as Shi’ite militia seal off central Samawah.
Bring ‘em on: US forces in Iraq face 50 attacks per day.
Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed in mortar attack near Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed by sniper fire near Baghdad.
Bring ‘em on: Four Iraqis killed, 18 wounded in mortar attack on Mosul recruiting office.
Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed, one wounded by car bomb ambush near Balad.
Bring ‘em on: Two Iraqi insurgents killed in heavy fighting near Karbala.
Bring ‘em on: Two British soldiers wounded by RPG fire near Amarah.
Bring ‘em on: CJTF7 reports five separate mortar attacks in central Baghdad.
CENTCOM reports one US Marine died in a non-hostile incident at Camp al-Asad.
One US soldier dies in vehicle accident in Iraq.
Six hundred Filipino contractors working at Camp Anaconda quit.
Coalition of the not-so-willing. “Allies of the United States are giving a lukewarm response to quiet requests that they send more troops to Iraq, amid escalating violence and public outcry over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners.”
Unacceptable risk. “Though many dozens of U.S. corporations have government contracts to help rebuild the country, relatively few American companies have invested their own capital. The volatile security situation has kept many potential investors away, and even as the U.S.-led coalition government has called on businesses to come to Iraq, the State Department has warned Americans to stay out of the country.”
Great Moments in Bush Diplomacy: “Pre-war transatlantic tensions surfaced again, with the foreign ministers of France, Russia and Canada all telling a Washington news conference that their countries would not send troops to Iraq even if their demands were to be met in a UN Security Council Resolution.”
Army Times poll: “Do you think Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Richard Myers should keep their jobs, in light of allegations of prisoner abuse at Al Ghraib Prison in Iraq?” The numbers don’t look good for Rummy.CommentaryEditorial: “If any of the goals Americans wanted to achieve in Iraq can still be salvaged, it will take more than fumbling crisis management driven by the needs of the Bush re-election campaign. A clear and coherent new course needs to be set without further delay, beginning with aggressive policy and personnel changes to undo the damage of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. The U.N. should be given clear authority over transitional political arrangements after June 30, with Washington fully backing Mr. Brahimi's efforts to assemble a caretaker government of credible Iraqis who are not associated with the occupation and are willing to put aside their own political ambitions.”
Analysis: “Here in Egypt, the ACIJLP and a number of human rights groups have launched a campaign to pressure the Egyptian government to cancel its bilateral agreement with the US that grants US personnel immunity from prosecution before the ICC. The Cairo Institute for Human Rights (CIHR) sent a statement to the Arab League urging its secretary-general to add the issue of similar US bilateral agreements with Arab countries on the agenda of the coming Arab Summit. ‘The stance of Arab states,’ a statement by CIHR said, ‘must not be limited to meaningless verbal condemnation [of human rights violations] in light of the immoral bilateral agreements some of these governments signed which protect war criminals, giving them free reign to commit their crimes.’ But CIHR's call might fall on deaf ears.”
Editorial: “Because his policies are so badly off track, President Bush's repeated assurances that he will soldier on through hard times sound more like folly than fortitude. ‘We will stay the course,’ he has said time and again. After Nicholas Berg was killed in Iraq, Bush repeated his resolve: ‘We will complete our mission. We will complete our task.’”
Casualty Reports
Local story: Washington State Guardsman killed in Iraq.
Local story: New York soldier killed in Iraq.
Local story: Tennessee Marine killed in Iraq.
Local story: Iowa Marine killed in Iraq.
Local story: Florida contractor dies in Iraq.
Local story: CNMI soldier wounded in Iraq.
Local story: California soldier wounded in Iraq (twice).
Local story: Massachusetts soldier wounded in Iraq.
Local story: West Virginia Marine wounded in Iraq.
Local story: New York soldier wounded in Iraq.
Local story: Idaho Marine wounded in Iraq.
Local story: South Dakota soldier wounded in Iraq.
Local story: Massachusetts soldier wounded in Iraq.
86-43-04. Pass it on.